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Abstract

Background: To investigate how callers understand the information given
by telephone by registered nurses in a casualty clinic, to what degree the
advice was followed, and the final outcome of the condition for the patients.
Methods: The study was conducted at a large out-of-hours intermunicipality
casualty clinic in Norway during April and May 2010.
Telephone interviews were performed with 100 callers/patients who had
received information and advice by a nurse as a sole response. Six topics
from the interview guide were compared with the telephone record files to
check whether the caller had understood the advice. In addition, questions
were asked about how the caller followed the advice provided and the
patient’s outcome.
Results: 99 out of 100 interviewed callers stated that they had understood
the nurse’s advice, but interpreted from the telephone records, the total
agreement for all six topics was 82.6%. 93 callers/patients stated that they
followed the advice and 11 re-contacted the casualty clinic. 22 contacted
their GP for the same complaints the same week, of whom five patients
received medical treatment and one was hospitalised. There were significant
difference between the native-Norwegian and the non-native Norwegian
regarding whether they trusted the nurse (p=0.017), and if they got relevant
answers to their questions (p=0.005).
Conclusion: Callers to the out-of-hours service seem to understand the
advice given by the registered nurses, and a large majority of the patients
did not contact their GP or other health services again with the same
complaints. Practice Implication: Medical and communicative training must be an
important part of the continuous improvement strategy within the out-ofhour
services.